Tag: love

No woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not lost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust; the supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the time, should possess her soul.

Women should not “obey” men any more than men should obey women. There are six requisites in every happy marriage; the first is Faith, and the remaining five are Confidence.

Nothing so compliments a man as for a woman to believe in him nothing so pleases a woman as for a man to place confidence in her.

Obey? God help me! Yes, if I loved a woman, my whole heart’s desire would be to obey her slightest wish. And how could I love her unless I had perfect confidence that she would only aspire to what was beautiful, true and right?

And to enable her to realize this ideal, her wish would be to me a sacred command; and her attitude of mind toward me I know would be the same. And the only rivalry between us would be as to who could love the most; and the desire to obey would be the one controlling impulse of our lives.

We gain freedom by giving it, and he who bestows faith gets it back with interest. To bargain and stipulate in love is to lose.

Perfect faith implies perfect love; and perfect love cast out fear. It is always the fear of imposition, and a lurking intent to rule, that causes the woman to haggle over a word it is absence of love, a limitation, an incapacity. The price of a perfect love is an absolute and complete surrender.

To give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual dissatisfied with himself.

Your enemies are the ones you have helped.

And when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied with the whole world and with you.

A man’s quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. But so strong is this inclination to lay blame elsewhere and take credit to ourselves, that when we are unhappy we say it is the fault of this woman or that man. Especially do women attribute their misery to that man?

And often the trouble is he has given her too much for nothing.

This truth is a reversible, back-action one, well lubricated by use, working both ways as the case may be.

That form of affection which drives sharp bargains and makes demands, gets a check on the bank in which there is no balance.

How do you appreciate yourself? Or do you? Did you learn that being good to yourself was selfish? If you said ‘No’ were you bad? If you praised yourself or were praised, were people afraid you might get a ‘swelled head’?

Most of us get the message loud and clear that praising ourselves or others would lead to ‘becoming conceited’ or ‘slacking off.’ The tragedy of this belief is that, in fact, the very opposite is true. What you pay attention to expands.

Self-appreciation and appreciation of others is based on love and acceptance. In other words, as I am willing to love me, I am capable of loving you.

Much of what we say and do is called ‘constructive criticism.’ This means I tell you something supposedly for ‘your own good.’

What actually happens is that I judge what you do and say based on ‘should’ then I tell you how to ‘do it right.’ In other words, criticism is destructive and leads people to feelings of inadequacy: love and acceptance lead to feelings of self-worth.

Remember: the most important task you have is loving and accepting yourself.

What is Self-appreciation?

Self is defined as the entire person of an individual while appreciation is defined as a judgment or evaluation; an expression of admiration, approval, or gratitude. Self-appreciation is about saying: ‘I accept myself exactly as I am.’

It is about acknowledging our unique gifts and knowing within each of us is a highly creative, skilled being just waiting for discovery.

Self-appreciation is not about putting others down or thinking yourself better; it is about loving ourselves the way we are and in turn loving others the way they are.

Remember: I can only accept and love you if I am willing to love and accept myself and acknowledge my own self-worth.

God is love, and the most important lesson He wants us to learn is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like Him. Love is the foundation of every command He has given to us. The whole law summed up with these: Love God above else, and Love others as you love yourself.

Yet, learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. It runs counter to our self-centered nature. That is why we are given a lifetime to learn it. God wants us to love everyone, but He is more particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family.

That is one of the purpose of our lives. The apostle Peter tells us “show special love for God’s people”. Paul echoes this sentiment: “when we have the opportunity to help anyone, we should do it, but we should give special attention to those who are in the family of believers.”

God do insist that we give special love and attention to other believers. God wanted believers to get priority in loving, because God wants his family to be known for its love more than anything else.

Jesus said our love for each other, not our doctrinal beliefs, is our greatest witness to the world. He said “your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

In heaven we will enjoy God’s family forever, but first we have some tough work to do here on earth to prepare ourselves for an eternity of loving. God trains us by giving us “family responsibilities,” and the foremost of these is to practice loving each other.

God wants us to be in regular, close fellowship with other believers so we can develop the skill of loving. Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people, those irritating, imperfect, frustrating people.

Damien Hirst grew up with quite impoverished background. He never knew his biological father, and his stepfather left the family when Hirst was twelve. He, being a working student in Leeds was marked by poor academic grades and a couple of arrest for shoplifting.

As a boy, he loves drawing. But he was rejected from the Art College in Leeds. He then moved to London and for 2 years, he worked as a laborer on construction sites. On his second try, finally he was admitted to Goldsmith’s School of Art at the University of London.

During Hirst’s school years, there was a recession in the Art World, and galleries weren’t taking on new talent.

In 1988, Hirst curated and organized an independent show of Goldsmiths student works in London’s desolate Docklands area. He scraped up the cash to rent out a vacant warehouse, curated the show, and printed up the programs. He made his first mark in the art world in an organizing role, as a curator, not an artist.

The art show called Freeze, and is legendary for launching the careers of a new generation of British conceptual artist. His own contribution to the show was unremarkable. It was an assemblage of cardboard boxes glued together and decorated with house paint. He was living in a public housing at the time, and couldn’t afford to actually produce some of the art he had design on his computer. Thanks to Freeze, however, he met an art dealer who was willing to front him $6,000 to execute his first substantial work.

Hirst didn’t pander and he did what he loved. He had always been fascinated by death and decay and he spent some time working part-time in a mortuary, where he sketched dead bodies. With $6,000 in hand, he produced A Thousand Years, a large glass case with the head of a slaughtered cow lying inside it. Also sealed inside the case was a colony of flies that bred maggots in the cow’s rotting flesh. Above the severed head was an electric bug zapper.

It is easy to worship God when things are going great in our lives. When He has provided food, friends, family, health and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do we worship God then? What do you do when God seemed a million miles away?

The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted, surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant.

Friendships are often tested by separation and silence; you are divided by physical distance or you are unable to talk. In your friendship with God, you won’t always feel close to him. Philip Yancey has wisely noted, “Any relationship involves times of closeness and times of distance, and in relationship with God, no matter how intimate, the pendulum will swing from one side to the other.” That’s when worship gets difficult.

To mature our friendship, God will test it with periods of seeming separation – times when it feels as if he has abandoned or forgotten us. God feels a million miles away.

David probably had the closest friendship with God of anyone. God took pleasure in calling him “a man after my own heart.” Yet David frequently complained of God’s apparent absence. Of course God hadn’t really left David. He has promised “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” But God has not promised “you will always feel My presence.” In fact, God admits that sometimes He hides His face from us.

Yes, God wants us to sense His presence, but He is more concerned that we trust him than that we feel him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.